No Excuse

We all know the type: the grad student (or non-grad student), who, when asked whether they have seen a certain movie, read a recent book, gone to a museum exhibit, or tried the new restaurant across the street, invariably responds:

I don’t have time.

Maybe some graduate students replace that excuse with “I don’t have money.”

As graduate students, we do not have the monopoly on limited time and money.  Having a constant pity party in our own honor for seven years is certainly not the way to happiness or professional success.

My mother said about relationships that one should start as they mean to go on. In other words, if you do the dishes for your spouse the first few months of marriage, it’s quite likely you’ll keep doing them until one of you dies.

I would suggest to you all, as we enter a new year and a new semester, to start our relationship with academia as we mean to go on. If we love movies, eating out, rock climbing, or reading our kids bedtime stories, then we should never use grad school as an excuse not to do those things.

Our priorities in life should include relationships, hobbies, and work. Maybe not every relationship, every fun activity can be given equal time. But we own these choices.